A hero is introduced.

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If you have gotten to this point without cowering on a corner, congratulations, it’s going to get worse from here. Right now, as you read this, you might be about to be eaten by a monster. It’s probable that you only have one dad or mom. If so, ask them the truth. If they don’t tell you at first, started packing, you will be visited by a god or goddess, they will tell you about a camp and great dangers will fall on you. Normally, it’s just that, but I am far from normal, even in demigod standards. You’ll soon read what I mean.
I usually have this nightmare about me been in school: just a normal school, nothing special about it, except for the fact that in every corner of the corridors a monster from the video game Age of Mythology is awaiting me. I have lived this dream so much it doesn’t scare me anymore.
Minotaur, a huge man-bull, with horns the size of baseball bats, left corner before the cafeteria; Medusa, old lady who teaches math with the hair tied in a pony tail until she takes off the hair band, hiding behind the gas tanks; crazy Cyclops, even bigger than the minotaur, just one eye, and the hands the size of trash can lids, standing in the metal working section of the school; huge crab, (no need to explain what it looks like, right?) in the swimming pool; demon cheerleader, don’t ask how, a she demon dressed like a cheerleader, horns like those of a ram and the face of a red skull, standing in the gymnasium, and more monsters.
Nothing unusual, until I noticed the hooded figure, this was a new monster, I knew nothing about it. He looked like the hooded figure in the first Harry Potter movie. I could control myself in dreams, unlike any mortal I knew. Yes, I said it. Mortals, as if I was not. Well, I am not, I’m only half mortal, I discovered it at the beginning of my adventure.
Anyway, the hooded figure was just standing there and as I walked to it, it just raised one hand, it was a normal hand, but it caused me to stay frozen in place. I literally could not walk, and then it started to move in my directions. Wherever it stepped, a coat of thin ice formed. One hand moved slowly towards its side, there it made a fist, and drew away. The weird part was that as it drew away, the air turned into a pitch black liquid that floated to the hand, forming a sword. Now I was really scared, no monster could do that in the videogame.
As it continued to walk towards me, I was still frozen solid to the ground, it raised its sword, with a yell, it plumbed down on me.
I woke up covered in sweat. The nightmare had gotten worse. I looked at my alarm watch. It was almost seven in the morning. I started to get dressed for school, a horrible outfit: a blue set of pants, a cyan shirt, a deep blue sweater, blue socks that made want to gnaw my feet off, normal Sunday shoes, a tie of the color that you can chose so long as you don’t put one that can make you happy. I combed my hair in the way I like.
I graved my unfinished homework and went to get some breakfast. My mother was already there, drinking her morning hot chocolate. I could see that she was getting ready to go to work in the bank. To her friends she was an example to follow and to me she was the best person in the world, she had raised me by her own, I had not been an easy boy to take care, but she loved me a lot.
There was this time when she took me to her sister’s house, before I was old enough to go to pre-school. When she came back, I was playing in the garden with a dog. Everything was okay, except for the fact that the dog was the size of a rhino. After the police had put it down, I saw a heavily clothed man walk away, cursing in a foreign language.
A few years later, my mom took me to the beach in California. She went to get me an ice-cream, and when she came back, I was playing in the water, chasing a fishy. Once again everything was okay, except for the fact that the fishy was a thirty foot long, great white. When the beach was cleared, I saw another man, this one dressed like a fisher man, walking away and punching the air.
When I was old enough to go to first grade, I went to the closest school to our apartment, and started school when I was supposed to. The year went by with no incidents, but just a few days before the end of the school year, I was in recess and I started playing with a bird.
Obviously, since I was just six years old, the bird did not seem dangerous. But when my mom came to take me home, I was playing with a giant eagle. When they scared it away, I heard a lot of thunder, at the time it was no big deal, but when I remember that time, I see that there were no clouds in miles around.
Then, in eight grade, I started to see my friends, less and less, until they stopped calling to hang out.
It was unbearable, at first, but when my mom saw me down, she bought me a CD player and all the disks I wanted, and then she got me the Age of Mythology for pc, she even got me a computer. It all went well, I went to school, I got good grades, and we moved occasionally, once because I blew up the chemistry lab by accidentally dropping a drop of water on the tank of sulfuric acid.
How was I supposed to know that acid did not go with bases?
Another reason was because once I caused the bus to explode. Nobody was on it at the moment, but some of the kids that did not like me said that they saw me “place a bottle of unknown liquid in the motor area.”
It was not me, but the other kids had very money rich parents. So I was expelled, they sent my mother a letter saying that I was no longer wanted in the school. That my trouble making attitude was no longer required, and the look she gave me. It broke my heart, as if she still was proud of me after what she had read. She loved me, and a letter from a school for little pigs with money was not going to change that.
I remembered all that while I was graving the cereal, these were the reasons I had never finished a school year. Honey nut cheerios, my favorites. I sat down and started to serve myself, and as I looked up, I saw my mother looking at me, with pride shinning in her eyes.
“You are finally going to do it.” She said.
What was I going to do?
“You are going to complete the school year.”
That’s right, I was finally going to finish a school year, and I felt so happy. There was nothing that could go bad today. It was the last day, and if I didn’t do anything dangerous, I was going to make a personal best.
I finished my breakfast, and graved the school bus. The day went through with nothing interesting happening, until the last period. The announcements blared out of the speakers, and they caught my attention: the students who could were invited to the Lagoon amusement park. The school covered all the costs, and the school would also pay for all the extreme rides. I returned to my apartment in a daze. I changed clothes like an android, and went to the living room, and sat down. It was impossible, the school paying for the amusement park and all the extreme rides. I stared at the TV, all the cartoons flashing before my eyes. I imagined the excitement I was going to have. I heard the door open, and I turned my head with a smile. My mother walked into the room, and when she saw me smiling, I knew it had been worth the pressure, the exams I had to study overnight, and all the tons of homework I had to do through the whole day. I told her about the Lagoon invitation from the school, and all the cool stuff they had promised the students who went.
She looked a bit worried, but when she saw that I was about to beg, she conceded. I started to get ready, empting my bag pack, filling it with food, and sunscreen. New clothes and a book for the drive; just in case the drive was long. Finally, the sun fell and the moon rose, I went to sleep.
The following morning, I woke up felling refreshed. No nightmare this time. I ate breakfast really fast, and left the apartment like a bolt of lightning.
I got to the school yard with nothing happening to me, looking around, I saw nobody. So I sat down and started to read the book I graved.
A few students came to the yard, and merged their faces in magazines. One walked and sat beside me, I said hi and he responded me with a grunt. So I stood up and walked to the entrance, just walking around, doing nothing.
My phone rang, and I grabbed it. It was my mother, and she sounded scared.
“Alex, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Alex, I called the school head master.” She said. “There is no trip to the Lagoon amusement park.”
That was impossible, I thought. I heard it from the speakers.
I hanged up, and looked over my shoulder. I turned around slowly, and my phone fell to the floor. There were no students, there were monsters. At my school, monsters, it couldn’t be, but there they were there, the Cyclops, the demon cheerleader, the Minotaur, I looked at the pool area at my left and I saw the giant crab snapping its pincers.
They charged and I threw my bag pack at the Cyclops, who tripped and fell, causing the monsters to topple over. I ran into the school as fast as I could.
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I opened the doors, and started running so fast, the school aides would have had a heart attack. This looked awfully a lot like my nightmare, so I ran to the cafeteria.
As I turned the corner, I saw I glint of metal showing from the edge of the wall. I turned and ducked as a double axe swung above my head, missing me by a hairs width, and it embedded itself on the wall.
I kept running even faster, and as I got near the gym, I got ready to face the she demon.
I busted into the gym in the middle of cheer practice, if cheer practice is learning how to chop the head off heroes with your pompoms, then yeah, it was cheer practice. This time I jumped, matrix style, doing a backward summersault and the giant razor sharp pompoms flew harmlessly under me. I´ve never been a jumper so I don´t know how I got the muscles to jump so high. I landed on the balls of my feet and tackled her with all my might, up she went, crashing into the score marker. The buzz of electricity filled the air, and also the smell of burnt demon skin.
I ran into the swimming pool at top speed, it almost felt like the edges of my vision were literally bending over. I opened the door to the swimming pool and a giant crab pincer slammed against me, sending me against the wall, and on the stands. I stood up felling very dicey, an intense pain throbbing against my ribs at the same tempo as my heartbeats, making my mind go cloudy, and my body to remain frozen. Dead ahead of me was the super big crab. I had almost decided to pinch myself and make a run for it when my body took over. I jumped really high, almost flying in the air and I landed on the crabs back. I raised my hand, forced it flat and stabbed, that’s right, stabbed its back like it was melted butter and when I expected to make contact with its innards I felt a soft, spherical ball, made of something I don’t know the name of. Automatically, my hand grabbed it and I felt the urge to pull my hand out. After doing so, the crab shuddered, staggered and fell over, obviously dead. I looked at my hand and found out that I was still clutching the mysterious ball; most weird of all was that my hand was totally clean, and I felt totally energized, as if I had just had a good nap.
I continued walking until I found the section of my dream where the Cyclops would lunge at me and attack me.
Just as I finished that thought, a giant hand flew at my face and I was been suffocated. I slapped the hand and I heard the crack of bones been broken. The Cyclopes yelled and clutched his hand, allowing me to run for my life. I exited the school in a few seconds and as I turned around, I saw the remaining monsters running after me. Man, I was so angry I just threw the ball at them. It sailed through the air and landed in the rec center. I turned around and the sonic wave in my life hit me in the back, sending me flying and landing on the asphalt, scrapping my arms and smacking my head on the ground. I stood up in a state of confusion. I turned around and almost fainted. The school was all rubble. Nothing was left but the football field, which had smoldering black flames on it. I turned around and run to my house, not knowing yet what I was, who I was, and what I was going to become.
I knocked on the door of my apartment, because I had lost my key. When my mother opened, she almost died of shock right away. No words were exchanged, she just knew what happened.
“So, what happened?” She asked, although, she already knew the answer, and I still told her.
She said that maybe we should let it slip and pretend that nothing ever happened.
I went to sleep even if it was the middle of the day, and this time, I had a conversation with my father.
I was still frozen to the ground, the sword was still falling on me and when it almost made contact with me, a scythe blade appeared out of nowhere, an even darker black, than the sword, with purple engravings, that blocked the swords path. The new stranger extended a hand that was of a normal tan and patted me on the shoulder. Now I could move freely, I looked back at him, and he looked back. I was about to say something when he said the most important words in this adventure and of my life, he said, “Hello, son.”
He looked straight ahead and pulled back his weapon; the attacker’s sword came down and got stuck in the floor. my attacker looked down, clearly confused. He clutched his sword and pulled, but nothing happened. He snarled, threw back his hand and the sword turned into a liquid like substance that went floating to him. When it reached his pocket, he spoke.
“So, you deprive me of my target?”He said.
“This is not the time, nor the host.” Answered my Dad.
“The gods are gone, nobody can rule, Thanatos. Soon, I will get him.” Said the hooded figure, and with that, he vanished in a flash of light.